Attack of the Green-Eyed Monster (No, Not Harry)
by Bohemian-Vixen
Summary: It's Hermione's turn to get jealous. Ron still hasn't gotten a clue. Or has he? *complete*


**Disclaimer: Not mine, but JK Rowling's and the large corporations which legally profit from JK Rowling's talent. :D Hehehehehehe._ Snickers isn't mine either._**

**A/N: Ah, jealousy. Mostly we see jealous-and-completely-clueless!Ron in fanfics. How about about Hermione? It's about time that we see a jealous!Hermione _and still a-bit-clued-in-but-still-hopelessly-clueless!Ron. :D Enjoy reading this! I had a lot of fun writing it. :D_**

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**_The Attack of the Green-Eyed Monster (No, Not Harry)_**

"Hermione! Hermione! Wake up!"

Hermione's deep slumber was interrupted by an excited voice calling her name. Even in the half-awake and half-asleep state she was in, she knew right away that the voice was Ron's. She forced her eyes to open, and sure enough, Ron's freckly face slowly came into focus before her eyes.

"Hey, you're back early," she said sleepily. "Where's Harry?" 

Ron frowned a little. "Harry is still at the Three Broomsticks with Ginny," he said grumpily.

Hermione turned to her side to face Ron. "Still being the older protective brother?" she teased. Ginny might be fifteen, but Ron was very protective of his only sister. And it did not help that Ginny and his best friend were slowly getting past the _we__'re-just-friends-aren't-we state. _

"I still can't take it," Ron said with a _can-you-blame-me-if-I-think-it-is-rather-awkward-that-my-only-sister-and-my-best-mate-are-dating look. Then he changed the topic abruptly. "I brought something for you," he said. His ears tinged red a bit. "You know, to help you recover fast from the flu," he added hastily as he handed Hermione a brown paper bag._

Hermione reached her hand out to get the paper bag from his hands. Slowly, she sat up on the bed and peered inside the bag.

"Oh! You bought me Snickers bars!!! Thank you!" she said excitedly. She took one from the bag and unwrapped it. "These are Muggle goods. Where did you get them?" she asked before taking a bite off the bar. "Mmmmm! It's been so long since I last ate a Snickers bar!" she exclaimed.

Ron smiled. "There's a new store—a Muggle specialty store— over at Hogsemade. Mandy and I went there together. Fortunately she knows where it is," he said.

Suddenly, the chocolate in Hermione's mouth tasted remotely of dust.

"Mandy Borcklehurst?" she asked in what she hoped was a nonchalant tone.

"Yeah, Mandy Brocklehurst" Ron sat down on the seat nest to Hermione's bed. "She's in Ravenclaw. We had a date to Hogsmeade today," he elaborated.

"A date…" Hermione said in a monotone.

Ron blushed. "Er, I'm not really sure if it's a date, but I s'pose technically it is, 'cause we made plans to meet somewhere so we could go to Hogsmeade together, you know, and er, we were pretty much by ourselves there for the day," he finished in a mumble.

Well, that was way more information than Hermione intended to hear.

Mandy was one of the most popular and well-liked girls in school. She had been a shy and plain-looking girl during their first few years at Hogwarts, but she gradually grew into the beautiful young woman that she was now. Mandy had an ice-princess beauty partnered with a surprisingly warm and friendly personality. 

And most importantly, her nose was dead center.

Hermione herself—whenever she was in her girly moods—secretly wished that she had Mandy's long black locks and pale blue-eyes instead of her bushy brown hair and brown eyes. Brown. How plain.

Usually Hermione consoled herself with the fact that she got higher marks than Mandy did, and that her hair could be just as beautiful as Mandy's if she was not too busy to apply Sleekeazy's Potion on her hair every day, and that she was, er, more abundant around the front area than Mandy was (not that Hermione really cared about sizes—she was just glad that she could properly fill her shirts and jumpers). 

But she felt plainer now, more than ever. And somehow she knew that at this moment, consoling herself with her own share of positive attributes would not work. She was just…tired.

Hermione placed the half-eaten candy bar back in the paper bag. She rested the bag on the table beside her bed.

"I think I ought to get back to sleep. I feel tired," she said simply as she rested her head back on the pillow.

"You didn't even finish the candy bar," Ron said, a note of hurt in his voice.

"I'm full."

"I remember you saying that no matter how full you are, you'll always have a room for a couple of Snickers bars. Take note—two bars."

"I'm sick. Of course I don't have much appetite."

"Not even for your favorite candy bar that you haven't tasted in ages?"

"Not even for my favorite candy bar that I haven't tasted in ages."

There were a few moments of silence. Then suddenly, Madam Pomfrey poked her head through the door and said authoritatively, "Weasley, Miss Brocklehurst wants to talk to you at the waiting area. Very important, she says. She wants to come in but I don't want another person disturbing my patients."  And with that, Madam Pomfrey gave one last disapproving look at Ron before she left. 

"Uh, I'll just see what she wants to talk about. I'll be back," Ron said as he stood up.

"No really, you can leave me now. I'm going back to sleep anyway," Hermione said rather stiffly, but she doubted if Ron had heard, because he was fast out the door.

Hermione, being the smart girl that she was, knew that she was being oddly unreasonable. She felt somewhat angry, she had a strong suspicion why she felt in such a way, but she refused to explore that train of thought right now.

She was saved from thinking from thoughts she did not want to think about by the sounds of voices that could be heard through the wall. The waiting area was adjacent to her room, so she could hear Mandy and Ron talking. Feeling really guilty and yet very curious, she pressed her ear against the wall to hear better.

"I'm glad Hermione is feeling better. Anyway, I really had a great time with you today. I think I forgot to thank you. Well, thanks," Mandy said coyly. A little too coyly, in Hermione's opinion.

"Er, no problem," Ron said. Then there was a short pause. "Um, I had a great time, too," he continued. Ron laughed a bit. Even through the wall Hermione could tell that it was a nervous laugh.

"Um, I gotta go. I still have Potions homework," Mandy said. "See you around?"

"Er, yeah, I guess. I gotta get back to Hermione."

"Oh." Very short pause. "Oh, okay. Bye, Ron." There were sounds of footsteps then an opening door. Then silence.

 Hermione quickly snuggled under the blankets and pretended to be asleep.

"Hey, you asleep so soon?" Ron asked a moment later. He shook her feet lightly.

Hermione made a huge show of yawning and stretching. "I was trying to sleep," she said pointedly at Ron, who was sitting at the foot of her bed.

"You've gotten enough. I bet you've been sleeping all day," he said.

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Ugh, this is silly," Hermione said with a roll of her eyes as she sat up the bed again. "Seriously, though, you shouldn't have come back here. You could have gone with Mandy instead," she continued.

"Huh?" Ron asked, a puzzled look in his face.

"I need rest. I would be stuck here until Madame Pomfrey decided to let me go, which I think would not be anytime in the near future," she explained.

"So? What does that have to do with Mandy or anything?"

Hermione sighed. "You could have gone with Mandy for another date today up in the Astronomy Tower. Instead you're here with plain ol' me when you could have better things to do. You'll be bored here." _'Ugh, where did that come from?' Hermione thought. A foot-in-mouth manifestation, indeed._

"No matter what you say, I know you'll be mad if I left so soon. Ginny says girls are like that," Ron said, chuckling. "Might as well stick around instead 'cause I'm not up for a fight." He laughed out loud.

It was just so like Ron to say something like that. "Well, I'm not going to be mad. If you'd rather be with Mandy, then you can leave anytime," she said a bit more coldly than she intended.

"When did I exactly say that I'd rather leave to be with Mandy?" he asked incredulously.

"You didn't exactly say it—"

"Then I really didn't say it!"

"—But you might as well have said it!"

"That's different! You're assuming!"

"I'm not assuming anything!" Hermione exclaimed.

"Then what do you call what you're doing right now?"

"I simply pointed out what you implied."

"I hadn't implied anything!"

"Oh yes you have! You're just forced to stick around longer so we won't fight about you leaving so soon!"

"We're now fighting! Some good it did!" Ron said sarcastically.

"Then you should have left in the first place with Mandy! In fact, maybe it would've been better if you hadn't come here at all!"

"With you acting daft, Hermione, I really think it would've been better if I hadn't left Mandy in the first place!" 

That was the last straw. Hermione—the usually calm and sensible one—was losing her temper fast. Maybe because she was tired from her fever, and maybe because of some things she refused to think about.

She grabbed the paper bag filled with Snickers from the bedside table and shoved it in his face.

"Then leave! Take these Snickers bars with you and give it to Mandy! You'd like that, don't you!" she cried shrilly.

"She doesn't like Snickers bars!"

Well, Hermione did not expect that kind of answer. Now she could not use her hastily planned retorts stored in her head anymore. Trust Ron to say the most unexpected things at the most crucial times.

"Then what am I going to do with these?" she asked for lack of something to say.

Ron looked at her like one would look at a five-year-old. "You keep them, then eat them sometime, because they're your favorites," he said. Then his expression softened. "I bought them only for you, and not for anyone else."

Hermione felt ashamed of herself for acting so bizarre. It really was not Ron's fault if she felt certain things toward him (which Hermione still refused to think about). She shouldn't become all mad and bitter if he liked Mandy.

"Um, I'm sorry," she said. "And have I thanked you for the Snickers?"

"Yes you have." Pause. "Did you just say you're sorry? Did you just give in that easily?" He looked at her in wonder. "You're really sick," he said in mock awe.

"Yes, I gave in that easily. Just now. I'm too tired to argue. It's your lucky day."

"And here I am thinking that it's your PMS day."

_"What???"_

Ron blushed. "Well, Ginny told me about PMS and mood swings—"

"Does Ginny tell you all the secrets of womanhood?"

"Well, I don't know anyone else I could ask about females, and I didn't want to be forever clueless!" Ron said defensively.

Hermione sincerely believed that there would always be a part of Ron that would be forever clueless. It was his nature. But of course she wisely refrained from saying her opinion out loud.

"Well, you could've asked me," she said.

Ron looked at her long and hard with a rather unreadable expression. Hermione felt a bit uncomfortable, although not really unpleasant.

"Um, I can't."

"And why not? Still thinking I'm not a girl?" she asked teasingly. 

"No it's not that!!! I know you're a girl. Er, I think you're a girl. No, I've known you're a girl since fourth year—even before that—because you said so, and you wear skirts—but not only that…er, yeah you're a girl," Ron managed to say. He also managed to turn as red as his hair, which was quite a feat even for him.

Hermione decided not to torture Ron anymore. She took out the half-eaten bar from the bag and took a bite.

"What's Mandy's favorite candy bar?" she asked.

She just put her foot in her mouth again. Literally of course. She could be coming down with foot-in-mouth disease.

"Why do you keep on bringing up Mandy? Are you jealous?" 

Hermione almost choked on the Snickers bar she was eating. "Jealous? Why would I be jealous?" she asked in a painfully strained voice.

"I dunno. Maybe you got a thing for her or something," Ron said matter-of-factly.

_"What???"_

"I'm familiar with homosexuality, Hermione. Although the information I have about that isn't firsthand. I'm okay with it, but I happen to like girls. Do you like girls, too?" he asked nonchalantly.

_"What???"_

"Don't you have anything to say besides _what?" he asked. He looked a bit grumpy._

"I don't have anything else against girls liking girls, but I happen to like boys," Hermione said. She had a feeling that they were having a ridiculous conversation.

Hermione thought she heard him mutter "Good" but she was not sure. It just might be a manifestation of her repressed wishful thinking.

"Then why are you obsessed on bringing up Mandy?" Ron asked.

Hermione thought desperately for a good answer. Fortunately, she quickly thought of one.

"Well, I am curious about your—your girlfriend!" she said brightly. Too brightly, in fact.

Ron frowned. "She isn't my girlfriend."

"Er, well, I am curious about the girl you fancy!"

"What gave you such an idea?"

"You took her to Hogsmeade on a date, Ron" she said, rolling her eyes.  

"No, I didn't take her there. She took me. She asked me out," Ron said. "I said yes because I didn't want to go alone—all the other blokes have dates—and I don't like the idea of going with Harry and Ginny."

Hermione resisted the relieved smile that wanted to break through her face.

"But that doesn't mean that you don't fancy her, does it? After all, she _is Mandy Brocklehurst," she asked just to make sure._

"I like her. But I don't _fancy her, if you get my drift." He thought for a moment. "She's too...I don't know. She's too quiet I guess. Or maybe she always agrees with me, that's why we don't have much to say to each other," he said with a shrug. "She's nice, but she bores me."_

"That's a bad thing to say about her!"

"Well, I can't help it if it's true, can I?" A moment's pause. Then he said, "Hey Hermione, next time there's a Hogsmeade weekend, don't get sick, okay? That way I'll have someone to go with without having to go on a date."

Hermione would have felt insulted, but she saw Ron's tomato-red face. Besides, Ron had never asked her to go to Hogsmeade with him ever (aside from the time when they were in third year and Harry couldn't go because he had no permission slip. But that did not count because Ron did not ask her to go with him. They had gone together to Hogsmeade by default).

It was a good start.

**_The End_**

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**A/N: I hope you liked it! Please review because I'd like to know what you thought of it! :D**


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